The princely solution

The over-40's can look back on college and university years marked by a lot of political activity on campus. All the parties had their fr...

The over-408217;s can look back on college and university years marked by a lot of political activity on campus. All the parties had their front organisations and both students and teachers served as cannon-fodder in proxy wars between groups whose proper stage was the electoral arena or the floor of legislatures.

Today8217;s campus is a very different place; the only quot;8230;istquot; left in PU or PEC or the various colleges are motor-ists and even among them there8217;s hardly a one who can explain the salient features of motor-ism. But while the big political campus commotion is a thing of the past, little commotions live on and many of these are also quot;politicalquot;, albeit in a primitive way.

Usually involving the sons of the powerful and influential, these all-too-frequent and sometimes criminal displays are intended to demonstrate kaun wada. One sees the same sort of thing among gorillas. The day Mr Harry Ape starts calling himself Lord Harry Ape with his son succeeding to the title then one will see a much more orderly gorilla society. We Indians used to be highly hierarchical 8212; everybody in their place with little chance of altering their position. Democracy is our game now but the feudal spirit is far from dead. Conflict is built into the situation and that brings us back to those campus affrays.

With two state governments and a local administration, the UT is full of grand personages whose status demands an armed retinue and many other marks of distinction 8212; and their status extends to their offspring too. This is unacceptable from a democratic point of view, but quite the norm from the feudal angle.

Without landing in an even bigger conflict, is there some way to reconcile democratic practices with feudal attitudes? Yes! But we must be prepared to learn from a former imperial enemy. Through centuries of juggling the feudal and the democratic, Britain has come up with some very useful institutions 8212; institutions that reek of aristocratic pomp and ceremony and serve the democratically useful purpose of getting tedious people out of the way.

A prime example is the House of Lords. It8217;s a pity India doesn8217;t have one as it is the perfect high-class dump for senior partymen, retired generals, DGPs and bureaucrats and even over-the-hill editors who would otherwise to be sent to Raj Bhavans and consulates where they can get into trouble. On the educational front, the wise old British answer was the Chiefs8217; College. Very exclusive, very posh 8212; it kept the princelings safely isolated and held in check by their own balance of power.

The common students8217; colleges could then be run in a disciplined manner with no fear of stepping on any feudal toe. If quot;Chiefs8217; Collegequot; grates on modern sensibilities, change it to something else; cite quot;threat to securityquot; as the reason for herding kids of bigshots into such academic corrals, load the place with snob-appeal 8212; the point is to cut down on the nasty incidents that take place each year by putting VIP brats where they don8217;t need quot;attendantsquot; and can8217;t do much mischief. Can we afford such a college? No problem! The cost can be met out of what the state will save on Gypsy-loads of armed police bodyguards.